Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-02-18

luded until ne WrOCe tne OfatOrlOs az
"Jephthah" and Esther" and "Saulo ana
the closing night three thousand delnd %a
people singing of a delusion to eiobt
thousand deluded hearers.
Yes, this system of the gospel is not sat.
isfed until it goes on and builds itself into
the most permanent architecture, so i
seems as if the world is never going to Get
rid of il. What are some of the finest
buildings in the world? st. Paul's, ST.
Peters, the churches and cathed~als Of ali
Christendom. Yes, this impertinence of
the gospel, this vast delusien, is not salts.
fed until it projects itself, and in one year
gives, contributes, s 6,250,000 to foreign
missions, the work of which is to make
ounces and fools OF the other side Of the
luded doctors-22O physicians meeting
week by week in London, in the Union
Medical Prayer Circle, to worship God,
Deluded lawyers-the late Lord Cairns.
the highest legal authority in England, the
ex-adviser of the throne, spending his
vacation in preaching the gospel of
Jesus Christ to the poor people of
Scotland; Fred.r rick 7. F%relinghuysen,
once the Secretary of State of the United
States, an old-fashioned evangelical
Christian, an elder in the Reformed Church;
John Bright, a.deluded Quaker; Henry
Wilson, the Vice President of the United
g~regationalist; Earl of kintore, dying q de-
luded Presbyterian. The cannibals in the
South Sea, the bushmen Of Terra del
Fuego, the wild men of Australia, putting
down the knives of their cruelty, and CLOTH
ing themselves in decent apparel-all I'M
der the powe of this delusion. Judson and
Doty, and Abeel, and Campbell, and Will
Jams, and the three thousand missionaries
Of the cross, turning their backs on home
and civilization and comfort, and going out
amid the squalor of heathenism to relieve
it, to save it, to help it, toiling until they
dropped into their graves, dying with no
earthly comfort about them, and going into
graves with no appropriate epitaph, when
they might have lived in this country, and
lived for themselves, and lived luxuriously,
and been at last put into brilliant sepuicher.
What a d%elusion.
Yea, this delusion of Christian religion
shows itself in the fact that it goes to those
who are in trouble. Now, it is bad enough
to cheat q man when he is we'll and when
he is prosperous; but this religion comes
to a man when he is sick, and says: "You
will be well again after awhile; you are 60
ing into a land where there are no coughs
and no pleu:isies and no consumptions ard
III 1duS ulSuluSS lhhC Cou1uSC dASA OCa4 ups
Yea, this awful chimera of the gospel
comes to the poor and it says to them:
"You are on your way to vast estates and to
dividends always declarable." This delu-
sion of Christianity comes to the bereft,
and it talks of reunion before the throne
and of the cessation of all sorrow. And
then to show that this delusion will stop ut
absolutely nothing, it goes to the dying bed
and fills the man with a%nticipations. How
much better it would be for him to have
him die without any more hope than swine
and rats and snakes. That is all. Nothing
more left of him. He will never know any
thing again. Shovel him under!
The soul is only a superior part of the
body, and when the body disintegrates the
soul disintegrates. Annihilation, vacancy,
present all that beautiful doctrine to the
dying, instead of coming with this hoax,
this swindle of the Christian religion, and
filling the dying man with a%nticipations of
another life, until some in the last hour
have clapped their hands, and some have
shouted, and some have sung, and some
have been SO overweight with Joy they
could only look e%cstatic. Palace gates
opening, heythought; diamonded coronets
flashing, hands reckoning, orchestras
sounding. Little children dying, actually
believing they saw their departed parents,
SO that, although the little children had
they could not turn on their dying pillow,
at the last, in a paroxysm of rapture I'M
comfortable, they sprang to their feet and
shouted: "Mother, catch me; I am COM
ing!"
The strong conclusion of every man and
woman in the house is that Christianity
producing such grand results cannot be a
delusion. A lie, a cheat, a swindle, an hal
lucination cannot launch such a glory of tho
centuries. Your logic and your common
sense convince you that a bad cause cannot
produce an illustrious result; out of the
womb of such q monster no such angel
can be born. There are many in this house
this morning, in the galleries and on the
main floor, who began with thinking that
the Christian religion was q stupid farce,
who have come to the conclusion that it is
a reality. Why are you here to-day? Why
did you sing this song? Why did you bow
your head in the opening prayer? Why
did you bring your family with you? Why,
when I tell you of the ending of ali
trials in the bosom of God, do there
stand tears in your eyes-not tears of grief
but tears Of Joy such as stand in the eyes
of homesick children far away at school
when some one talks to them about going
"oAAAS' why Id ~ sAAO YOU CdL1 Do 6O CHILLY
submissive to the death of your loved one,
about whose departure you once were SO
angry and SO rebellious? There is some
thing the matter with you. All your friends
have found out there is q great change.
And if some of you would give Your ex-
perience, you would give it in scholarly
style, and others giving your experience
would give it in broken style, but the one
experience would be just as good as the
other. Some OF you have read everything.
You are scientific and you are scholarly,
and yet if | should ask you: What is the
most sensible thing you ever did," you
would say: The most sensible thing I
ever did was to give my heart to Cod"
But there may be others here who have
not had early advantages, and if they were
asked to give their experience. they might
rise and give such testimony as the man
gave in a prayer-meeting when he said:
"On my way here tonight I met a man who
asked me where I was going. l said: Il am
goingto prayer-meeting.' He said: There
are a good many religions, and I think the
most of them are decisions; as to the
Christian religion, that i only a notion, that
IS a mere notion, the Christian religion I
coiI fn him. sCfv,,,,. 80